Personal Honor Is the Greatest Protection Against Political Abuse

Egil Krogh was head of the special investigations unit, known as "the Plumbers," some members of which went on to commit the Watergate break-in. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy in connection with the Plumbers' burglary of Daniel Ellsberg's psyciatrist's office and served four and a half months. A lawyer, Krogh is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, and the author of “Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices and Life Lessons From the White House.”

June 13, 2012

When I was a young lawyer, if a friend had suggested that I conspire to commit burglary and steal someone's psychiatric files, I would have been outraged.

But I did that very thing when I thought I was a obeying the will of the president. That's because when I was in charge of the White House special investigations unit — "the Plumbers" — we were told, and I believed, that we were acting in the interest of national security, not thinking at the time that our work was blatantly unconstitutional.

In my zeal to help the president, I never considered my own duty to the rule of law and underlying ethical values.

The Plumbers broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist in September 1971. Ellsberg had released the top-secret Pentagon Papers to The New York Times earlier that year and The Times had begun publishing the documents that June. President Nixon said the publication was a national security crisis that would encourage others with access to classified information about his Vietnam War plans to leak to the press. He said such leaks would undermine the president’s ability to end the war on his terms.

I was told that Nixon believed discrediting Ellsberg was of the greatest importance. I believed the burglary that I authorized would ascertain whether Ellsberg might have told his psychiatrist he was under pressure from the Soviets, which we thought was so. Of course, we found no evidence of that.

The Plumbers' pursuit of this warped notion of national interest led to the Watergate burglary the following year.

In my zeal to help the president’s national security imperative, I never considered the constitutional limits on his power and my own duty to the rule of law and underlying ethical values.

Young men and women in government face questions of national security today. Their response to these very real threats must be consistent with constitutional authority, the law, case decisions and responsible legal analysis that define the scope of that authority.

But the government's response to the terror we've faced over the past decade has often shown that too many honorable people have acquiesced, as I did, to the abuse of power.